Frindle

There's this wonderful kids' chapter book by Andrew Clements, called Frindle. In it, Nick Allen is an imaginative and mischievous fifth grader, who likes to mess with teachers in a basically harmless way.

His fifth grade language arts teacher, Mrs. Granger, was a worthy adversary for Nick's antics. When he tried to throw her lesson plan off course, she assigned him a bonus assignment to find out where the words in the dictionary came from.

And after he gives his report, he still has a question: "Yeah, but, you know, I still don't really get the idea of why words all mean different things. Like, who says that d-o-g means the thing that goes 'woof' and wags its tail? Who says so?"

Mrs. Granger responds, "Who says dog means dog? You do, Nicholas. You and I and everyone in this class and this school and this town and this state and this country. We all agree...but if all of us in this room decided to call that creature something else, and if everyone else did, too, then that's what it would be called, and one day it would be written in the dictionary that way. We decide what goes in that book."

And not long after, Nick had another idea. He wanted to test out his power over words. So he decided to start calling pens frindles. He got a few classmates on board and began by going in to a store, a different person each day, and asking for a frindle. Then they started using it in class, and it caught on. Before you knew it, it spread around the school. And Mrs. Granger tried to stop anyone from using it. She talked to Nick and asked if he was going to stop, but he said he wasn't. So she handed him a sealed letter, had him sign and date over the seal, and said he would get the letter when it was all over.

Well, kids kept using the word. So Mrs. Granger kept kids after school for using it. But that didn't stop kids, and before you know it parents were calling in and complaining, and bus drivers were threatening to go on strike because a hundred kids were staying late each day. And because of the uproar, the local paper did a story on it. And then a local news station in Boston saw the local paper and did a report, which was also aired in New York. And meanwhile a local business man trademarked the word, created pens with the word frindle on them, and gave 30% of all profits to Nick in a trust fund. And after the story aired in New York, some producers of David Letterman saw it and Nick was invited on the show. And so on it snowballed, the use of the word spreading. And eventually the hype died down, but all around the country people were using the word frindle.

And then the book fast forwards to Nick's junior year of college. He gets a package in the mail from Mrs. Granger, with a brand new dictionary and a note to turn to page 541. There it is. The word frindle is in Webster's College Dictionary. Also enclosed is the letter Nick signed when he was in fifth grade.

"If you are reading this letter, it means that the word frindle has been added to the dictionary. Congratulations.

"...The word frindle has existed for less than three weeks. I now see that this is the kind of chance that a teacher hopes for and dreams about—a chance to see bright young students take an idea they have learned in a boring classroom and put it to a real test in their own world. I confess that I am very excited to see how it all turns out. I am mostly here to watch it happen.

"But somehow I think I have a small part to play in this drama, and I have chosen to be the villain. Every good story needs a bad guy, don't you think?"

To me, this is the genius of the book. Every good story does need a villain—and in this story, the villain gave herself that role in order to further the plot. If she hadn't kept kids after school and made such a big stink about the word, it never would've spread beyond the walls of Nick's school.

I've been thinking about this book because I think it applies very much to the church. I look at the fire bombings going on in Egypt and I think—these are the moments in history when the church blossoms. When the church doesn't face persecution, it tends to fizzle out. When there is a risk to being a Christian, people have to be all in or not in at all. And Christians who are all in despite persecution draw attention. I pray for the Egyptians because what they are facing is unimaginably difficult—but I also wait in eager expectation to see what God will do there to show his power over the persecutors.

The church in America isn't doing so hot. And while we claim we are persecuted because Obama has a Ramadan dinner or they mix in some Hanukkah songs on the radio in December, we know that there's really little risk to being a Christian here. There's nothing threatening our freedom. And without the villain, without the enemy, we can be lukewarm, "Sunday Christians." We don't have to unite together against a common enemy. Satan's plot against the church in America is to make it easy to be a nominal Christian. And it's working.

It's hard because I don't want to be persecuted. I'm comfortable. I don't want to have to deal with the kinds of things Christians in Egypt are! Who does? And yet I feel that without a real enemy, the Church in America will continue to dwindle.

"Every good story needs a bad guy, don't you think?"